RELATED NEWS/ARCHIVE

After all, they'll say, the fall TV season has been disrupted by everything from the presidential debates to baseball playoffs, the World Series and Hurricane-turned-Superstorm Sandy. And though the season officially started Sept. 24, some network shows didn't debut until last week.

No matter. It's time to start proclaiming the winners and losers of this latest TV season, five weeks after it started.

Keep in mind: Success or failure is judged by each show's ratings with the viewers that advertisers like (usually the 18-to-49 demographic) or some other moneymaking method, like syndication sales or Netflix.

Marc Berman of TVMediaInsights.com said the biggest problem is most new shows this fall aren't big hits or big failures.

"Nothing has broken out," said Berman, noting highly hyped series such as Nashville, Last Resort and Vegas haven't caught fire, while widely snubbed shows such as The Neighbors and Revolution haven't bottomed out. "A lot of new shows are just sitting there. So you show some patience."

Not me. I'm picking Fall TV's winners and losers right here, right now.

WINNERS

NBC and The Voice - Good news for the formerly last-place network: NBC is the only broadcaster to grow ratings among viewers ages 18 to 49 from last season, now No. 1 over the season's first three weeks. That's mostly thanks to NFL football on Sundays and The Voice on Mondays and Tuesdays. "This proves one series can ignite a network," said Berman, who wondered if moderately successful shows such as Ryan Murphy's The New Normal and Matthew Perry's Go On could survive long without The Voice's lead-in audience. I'm thinking, um, not.

NFL games - Speaking of pro football, a look at the first four weeks of ratings shows six of the Top 10 shows among key viewers are football broadcasts on NBC, CBS and Fox. It may be the last place TV still draws a big crowd.

Grey's Anatomy - Surprise! It's the highest-rated drama among the 18-to-49 crowd in its ninth season. Small wonder ABC is letting creator Shonda Rhimes put anything else on air she wants; it sorely needs whatever lightning Grey's has caught in a bottle.

Comedy - The only scripted shows in the Top 10 for the 18-to-49 viewers so far are comedies: Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory. Look at the Top 20, and there are just two dramas (Grey's and NCIS) among comedies such as 2 Broke Girls, The Simpsons and Two and a Half Men. Young people, it seems, would rather laugh than cry.

Cable TV - What are the shows people are buzzing about this fall? Cable series: The Walking Dead (AMC). Sons of Anarchy (FX). Here's Comes Honey Boo Boo (TLC).

Comedy - Though established comedies are doing well, new comedies aren't working as well as advertised. Fox's The Mindy Project and Ben and Kate have struggled with a situation made worse by baseball pre-emptions; ABC's The Neighbors sits in the middle of ratings, despite airing just before the highest-rated scripted show on TV, Modern Family. And the less said about dreck like NBC's Guys With Kids, the better.

Cancellations - In a season where networks are showing unheard-of patience, two shows which managed to get cut anyway occupy a special level of unfortunate: CBS's walking Italian joke Made in Jersey, and NBC's trained- monkey showcase, Animal Practice.

Shows older people like - By this, I mean shows that draw big audiences, but less than 25 percent of their viewers are in that 18 to 49 sweet spot: Dancing With the Stars, Castle, Person of Interest and CBS's Vegas.

That means Vegas, for example, has drawn an average 12.5 million viewers each night over the past four weeks, but just 2.5 million among the 18-to-49 demo. Analyst Brad Adgate of Horizon Media said its viewers' median age is 61. So if there's a few denture cream ads in between scenes with Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis, don't say I didn't warn you.

New York-based analyst Brad Adgate provided many of the ratings figures used in this column.